Pray for "Far-away-go"

I'm sure most of you have heard at some point recently about the flooding in Fargo, ND. My brother John and his lovely bride Abby are living up there and working to plant a church. About 2 weeks ago (in between winter storms...) they had sweet baby Julia....we thought for sure she would be born during the blizzard, but she held off...my mom eagerly flew up there last week to spend time with her newest grandbaby and to help them move into their new house, etc...but instead she and Abby and Julia got to (voluntarily) evacuate for a while due to the flooding. John stayed behind to help with the sandbagging effort and to minister to the people who were evacuated. Please pray for them all up there...I've heard that the river has finally crested and should be on its way back down, but that may take a while under the best of circumstances, and there is another winter storm on the way....hopefully they will be able to move into their new home soon. Assuming the dikes all hold neither of their homes are in any danger and they are all still high and dry. Just pray that they stay that way...

our trip to nashville

this weekend was one of our day trips to Nashville. It started out to be a pretty sunny day. We got in and ate lunch with Papa John and Mimi. they made us lunch with their new "toy" a Vita-Mix machine. It was pretty cool....it's a blender that even makes soup...like you put the ingredients in and not only does it chop it all up for you, but leave it running for a few minutes and the friction heats up the soup for you too....neat! We had fun hanging out with them and seeing with our own eyes that papa john is ok....he had a nasty wreck earlier in the week...and ambulance had to take him to the hospital and he even had to spend the night...but by this weekend he was pretty good...a little beat up and still pretty sore, but better than I expected. He still got down on the floor and played around with Jack.

Afterwards we went over to Pops and Berties house. Daddy got all excited about a building project he got to do for them while we were there...I think it got his DIY juices flowing in anticipation of our new home....we had fun playing and visiting...but soon that pretty day wa replaced with those nasty storms that blew in with wind, rain, hail and tornado threats. Jack and I spent a little time in the interior bathroom just in case...those storms still pretty much freak me out! No damage, no one blew away. :) We had a nice visit in Nashville.

This is Jack on the way in...we always try to time our trips around nap time so he can nap in the car....we waited a little longer than usual and he was REALLY tired. He was asleep around the time we got to the interstate. :)Jack and Papa John are watching Mimi using her new "toy" and make us smoothies for dessert.

packing and closing and moving

we are so close to getting our new home. last week I was rushing around trying to round up boxes for packing. I was kinda spoiled in Nashville since we lived close to some liquor stores and they set their boxes out for people to use...this was my main source of packing boxes during my many moves over the years....new we live in a "dry county" and it's a little harder to get boxes. I talked to and called one place near us 4 times, they assured me that they would save their boxes for me (so I didn't bother looking around anywhere else...) and when I went to pick them up, they fussed at me for being 30 minutes late (I KNOW I mentioned a 1 year old in the house during my phone calls) and they threw them out since there was a "threat of rain"...(it didn't rain that night) I was SO MAD! Thankfully my husband saved the day and arranged to get some boxes from some much more cooperative people near his work. YAY! Here is the problem now...I know we need to pack ahead of time...but how much can we pack that we don't need right away....especially with a kid who has toys he needs to entertain himself with....what do we do with the boxes after we have packed them.....and how do we keep him from either hurting himself or unpacking them too soon....this move will be very different than the one we did around a year ago...since back then he was so little I just put him in his car seat out of the way and he was pretty content to either sleep or watch what was going on...now he wants IN on the action!
This morning we went to do the final walk-thru. Everything looked pretty good...just a few things to mention to the seller....and I can already tell that Jack loves all the wide open space to run around in...but that its going to take some getting used to for all of us. Just as our walk through started, we didn't realize the storm door doesn't latch right, and he fell out the storm door and bumped his head on the front porch, he's already christened the place. I'm sure there will be more blood, sweat and tears in the days to come...(he's fine)...make a note...the storm door just moved up on the list of things to fix asap.
Please pray for us in the coming weeks as we get things settled and that it goes as smoothly and safely as possible. It will be interesting to see how well he transitions to a new place...

GOTCHA!

I caught him unpacking a box...I try to cover up the ones within his reach...sometimes he's too smart for that....

more chair pictures...

Josh brought Jack's new chair inside so he could sit in it while he's watching Little Einsteins. Doesn't he look like a little old man holding the remote and the drink?

Animals...

ok, I know I promised to back off the sign language stories for a while, but this has him TALKING too...sort of....he is showing off his animal knowledge. Just within the past few days he has started telling us what a horse says, and fyi-the arms flailing around while he's making the elephant noise is supposed to be the elephants trunk....ENJOY!ps-this morning he learned the word for his favorite breakfast food, EGGS...like he really SAYS it, with his voice. It's so cute. Maybe I can get a video of that soon too! I tried to call Josh and let him hear it over speaker phone, but Jack just got loud and rambunctious at that point and started hollering...sorry honey....your eardrums will heal eventually...just ask your patients to speak louder for a few days....:)

Socks

As many of you may know, I LOVE to knit. My grandmother taught me years ago on the way back from N.C in the back of our station wagon (you know, the seat that faces backwards...) over the years I would pick up projects and put them back down again. Once I started teaching I decided to pick it back up again as a stress reliever. Instead of scarves I branched out into hats, sweaters, booties, purses, belts, blankets, I've even sold my little creations at craft shows around Nashville. So now I've graduated up into the wonderful world of SOCKS! I've wanted to take a class on knitting socks for a while, and for Christmas my mom "gave" me a class from a shop up here in C'ville. I was SO excited to sign up...I'm sure the people at the shop were thinking "this girl needs to get a LIFE" but I was just so thrilled about learning something new, and having some "me" time. They even changed the days of the class so I could come and leave Jack with Josh. Instead of the 3 or 4 class meetings they predicted it would take, me and the other ladies in the group ended up taking 5 or 6 (and some even more...they started their socks over 3 or 4 times....)Socks have to be knitted on REALLY little needles, which I'm not too scared of...just for reference, a scarf is normally knitted on probably a 8 or 9 sized needle, my baby hats are on a 3, so I wasn't too scared of the smaller needles..until I found out I would be knitting on SIZE ZERO! Yikes. So, it seemed like it took forever, but I got 2 socks done...yes, I know they don't match...and I plan to knit their mates asap...I've already started the blue one...so look out loved ones, you might be getting SOCKS for Christmas!! Thanks to my mom for providing the class, and thanks to Josh for rushing home after work on Wednesdays so I could get to my class!

somebody shrunk it...

In the kmart ad this week I saw a toddler sized picnic set advertised at such a great price, and it looked just perfect for Jack! Although I had to get a rain check on the set, they did have the chairs to purchase, so I got one. He was so excited and surprised to have a chair his size. He still can't figure out how to get into the chair (showing him how to back up into it just isn't working yet...) he gets very excited (as you can see in the picture) when he stands up by himself from the chair (something he can't do yet from sitting on the floor) When Josh got home tonight and saw the little plastic adirondack chair and commented "somebody shrunk a lawn chair"

one last time

one thing that I KNOW I will miss about our current location is how close and convenient it is to EVERYTHING...we decided to take a walk up to Poet's, one of the local coffee shops for probably the last time, although I wouldn't mind going again before we move.... I rationalize the yummy drink I get as being ok since I have to walk about a mile and a half (round trip) to get it...those calories don't count, right? When he gets tired of sitting, Jack likes to push is own stroller, and he pushed it farther than he's ever gone before, both on the way there, and on the way back. Maybe we should've gotten him a treat at the coffee shop too....

ps-Josh isn't helping push at all, if anything he's holding him back to keep the stroller from rolling away...and it's uphill at this point. The child is a hoss!

awww...twinkies

Jack and Daddy ended up wearing similar shirts on our outing today....I just had to take a picture, or two...

This one is my favorite. The sad thing is that about an hour later he got poop on his shirt and had to have a wardrobe change at Jersey Mikes....Jack that is, NOT Josh. :)

he's memorized the answers!

You might remember that a few months ago I took a video of him showing off a few of his signs...I took the video on my camera phone, and every so often when he's bored and I'm out of ideas we will "watch the baby"....we've done it so many times now that he has it memorized. Sometimes before the video has even mentioned the first sign, he's gone through the whole gamut of them...so here he is watching....himself. Ithink you can see a few times that he does the sign a split second before it's asked...and I promise, this is the last sign language post for a while...

well, here's one more quick story...John and Abby sent me a pix message of Baby Julia on the day they brought her home. I showed the picture to Jack, and the first thing he "said" was hat...I guess because of the hat she had on. I then pointed out to him that she is a "baby" and he started doing the sign for baby. A little while later when we were playing outside he would come over to me every so often and do the sign for baby until I would pull out my phone and show him the picture of Julia. Aww, he loves is new cousin already!

15 month check-up

He's a whopping 33 inches tall and 25.2 pounds. That puts him at the VERY TOP of the growth charts in height and right in the middle in weight. Wonder if he's gonna be tall and slim like his daddy He only got 2 shots, and while they were of course not very enjoyable (not sure I've ever seen him turn that shade of red before!) he got over it very quickly when it was decided that he is now old enough to get a "prize". The neon green wind-up rolly poly bug toy was/is a big hit! He was so cute during his exam...instead of getting annoyed by being prodded and poked, he just giggled because it was kinda like being tickled...and boy is this child ticklish! My favorite spot is on his knees! :) It was suggested that to aid him in developing his verbal language to "lose the passy" maybe by 18 months...eek! We are trying very hard to limit it to bedtime and in the car (which often also means when while we are running errands too...) but lately he's had it quite a big at home too because he is teething his molars and just chews his hands raw....I'd rather him do that to the passy. Oh well...the time will come...will it be the passy fairy.....or giving them away to babies who need passys...or to put on in a special stuffed animal (so the passy is still "there") or are the passys just going to have to be "lost" or told "bye-bye" in the trashcan? We'll see. Many ideas...

sunshine!

It has been a soggy several days..so I was super excited that the sun peeked out for a little while today. Maybe it will stick around for a little while...here are a few pics I was able to snap with my camera while we were hanging out on our deck...

He is grinning an walking towards me (the hand is always in his mouth unless there is a passy there instead...teething on molars will do that...) No, he's not having a fit....he just still gets excited to be walking around.

Spying on the neighbors...

I was trying to get a picture of him a maggie spying on the neighbors together...he decided it was time to break outta this joint!

In case you have been wondering, o adoring blog fans, no, our camera hasn't been broken or lost...the lack of pictures hasn't been intentional. He's just so busy now, and rarely still enough for a Kodak moment. Last week I tried 3 separate times to get a picture of him with a REALLY tall block tower that he built himself, but just as I would press the camera button, he would knock it down...EVERY TIME! His timing was impeccable! What a toot! So, I'm trying to get some pics! Promise!

yes, we're now on facebook....

I've been holding out for SOOO long....and I had my reasons...some legit and some just stubborn...but we are now on facebook. don't worry, I've already decided that I work so hard on this blog, and it is quite important to me...so if any of my facebook friends want to see pictures, they will just have to come here...'cause I'm not giving up the blog, and it's too much work to do it in 2 places. I am trying REALLY hard to not spend too much time on Facebook....it's taking a lot of self-discipline...and I'm not being too successful yet. I'm really trying though! I've heard it looses it's newness appeal eventually.Wanna know why I FINALLY gave in (after being told at least WEEKLY that I should join...) John posted pictures of Julia on Facebook, and my mom was DYING to see pictures...so she joined Facebook. It was then that I decided that if my MOM is on facebook, and I'm not....that's just too far....it's time to give in! :) Besides, I was living the facebook existence vicariously for several months through Josh's account...I may as well make it legitimate.

Baby Julia is Here!

My brother John and his wife Abby had their sweet baby girl today. John called my mom at 2 am to say they were on their way to the hospital, and she was born sometime before noon. Not bad. She was a good weight at just over 7 pounds and quite tall at 21.5 inches long. It was a great day for this to happen because we were headed into "town" anyway to help out Rachel and Jeff with fixing up their new home...so along with Granny Ruthie, Mzee and Uncle Daniel we got to celebrate the new grandbaby all together. Since John was obviously not immediately available with news, his good friend Jeremy (who happened to be up there on business) called my mom from just outside the delivery room door saying "I hear a baby crying, and since it doesn't sound like John I'm guessing it's Julia". Thanks Jeremy...we were dying for some news!!! How exciting. Isn't she beautiful? To celebrate, Rachel and Jeff surprised us with some Baskin Robbins Birthday Cake saying "Happy Bday Julia" (Which is so special to all of us since we all got to help when John asked Abby to marry him with a Baskin Robbins cake....AWWW!) We also called John and sang Happy Birthday to Julia as only the Dudu family can...any of you who have been to one of our birthday celebrations will understand....hopefully she won't be scarred for life...if John ever lets her hear it! :)

Jack also had a fun day today. He got to go see one of his great-grandmas and hang out a lot with Granny Ruthie so that Mommie could help paint some super cute rooms (shagreen and krypton were the paint colors...can you guess which one is for the "man cave?") and Daddy got to tear down a wall and do various other construction jobs...very therapeutic after a hectic week. Here is Jack trying on some safety goggles at the "work site" doesn't he look ready to work!?

so this is our version of tax season....

It's cold and flu season....I'm understanding better how the spouses of accountants feel during tax season....It's also not helping that they are down one provider since the other nurse practitioner (btw she has kids OUR age...) has taken off to hike the appalachian trail...no joke!! But the good news is...they pay OVERTIME! I'm thankful for my husband's job.... I'm THANKFUL for my husband's job....really.....especially in this economic mess and with a new house on the way (have I mentioned that? :) I'll just be happy when there are a few less sick people...just a few less....(also because then I won't be afraid to take Jack back to the Y childcare...between separation anxiety and the snotty noses, it's not good times...and trust me I'm NO germophobe....I just don't like having a sick baby!!!) Just to give you an idea of how busy Josh's office is up there...the schools are closed due to illness....again....I've lost count of how many sick days they have. We NEVER had sickness days in Metro. Let's just hope that the flu shot he received and his obsessive handwashing keeps all the germies at work and NONE at home. They pratically had to corner him to get it...my strong brave husband who can "stick" people all day long...can't stand needles! so anyway, sigh....all of thuis definitely makes me appreciate the weekends EVEN MORE!

Our (soon-to-be) new home

I am getting so excited...it still doesn't seem real that in less than a month (Lord Willing) we will be in a FOR REAL house! While I am so thankful that the Lord has provided us with safe, convenient, affordable housing for the past year, I definitely think it is time to move on...here is why: This house has been on the market since JULY an no one has shown any interest, it has passed all inspections (home, septic, termite) with flying colors....it has WAY more square feet than ANYTHING else in our price range, the seller took our first offer without any counter offer (and boy were we shocked...we went lower than we thought would ever be possible, just to give us some wiggle room....) it is more than 5 minutes closer to Josh's work than now....it is in a very nice, seemingly quiet neighborhood with safe streets for walking and strolling....it needs just enough work (hardly any at all) to get Josh's DIY juices flowing....when the time came to "lock" our interest rate our lender told us to hold off 1 more day because the rumr was that rates were going down...but when the time came all the rates had stayed the same...except for the one we were angling for which was lower than she had ever quoted me before...I could go on and on...I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop...I'm not sure we deserve this house, but I am so thankful for it! The only explanation I can have for all of these things to be falling into place so well is that the Lord picked out this house for us. It may not live up to all of our criteria....but it is obviously the house He wants us to have, so who cares that it doesn't have a garage....from what I've heard, the majority of garages are never parked in anyway.... :) So now we are just waiting for all the loan stuff to come together and the finishing details. Anyone available to help us move in April? :) I'm so excited! Praise God!

It's been a little while...

and it's not that I've been too BUSY to share, or that nothing exciting has been going on....blogging just hasn't been at the top of my brain lately. Let's see....
Jack is getting more and more confident with his walking, we have been enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather outside the past few days (I'm totally bummed at the idea of it being back in to 40's tomorrow!!!), he's picked up 6 new signs....baby, cheese, bird/duck, milk, cat, and elephant. Baby was a really cute one for him to learn...it took a little while for him to coordinate his arms to both move in the same direction at the same time...we got some really cute versions of baby for a while (and NO...there is no particular reason why I taught him baby...I promise, despite what my mother may insinuate...there is no sibling on the way...promise!) cheese was learned just today during lunch, I demonstrated it a few times and waited to see if he could just watch to pick it up, or if I had to physically do it with him too...but he did it on his own...and bird was a bit of a surprise....I had been showing it to him for a little while...but not really holding out hope for it since it takes a bit a fine motor skill to open and shut his little hand like a bird beak...but the other day we were reading his book of farm animals and he looks right at me and starts opening and closing his hand for bird, without any prompting. It's like it just clicked! I got SOOO excited! Milk is similar to bird...only with the hand turned sideways like milking a cow....I also wasn't holding out much hope for cat, since he's never seen a REAL one...but he now does that one too...it involves pulling out little cat whiskers on your face...his version is pinching one of his cheeks and pulling out...like making a silly face...its pretty cute. I doubt that our sign for elephant is the "official sign" but Bethany was trying to teach him the sound for elephant (too hard to describe...just use your imagination....) with throwing an arm up in the air like a trunk....so now when we ask him to say elephant he swings his arm up and TRIES to make some version of the sound...you really have to try hard to tell what he means...but we know! :)
I gotta say, in years past I HATE the spring forward daylight savings time...but when it comes to a baby who's internal clock doesn't really care what time it is...I LIKE it! Instead of waking up at 6, it's 7....and going to bed an "hour later" means he (might) get to see Daddy before bed....as long as daddy is home on time....more on that later too....
What else is going on...hmm....I'll update you about our soon-to-be house soon....that would make this post WAY long....Say a prayer for my siblings...Rachel and Jeff are still working very had (in addition to both going to school and working their day jobs) on putting a lot of sweat equity into their new home (and thanks to the Dudu's for helping them out SOOO much!)....John and Abby are getting their "ducks" in a row for getting their new home (it looks like we might be moving the exact same weekend as them) but before that they will be meeting baby Julia (her due date was YESTERDAY...no baby....)and now there is a BLIZZARD going on up there! Yikes! Say a few prayers for them!!!!!!
I'll write more about the house soon....Jack is waking up from his nap....